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Stop Procrastinating Or Conscious Procrastination

by Steve Pavlina

No time management system is worth much if it doesn’t tell you what to do at 9am on Monday morning. Suppose you have a list of all your tasks and projects. Which one should you work on first?

My answer is that you should work on the task that you believe will yield the greatest long-term payoff until true urgency requires that you switch. But of course many people do the exact opposite. They begin their workdays with the little stuff that’s easy to dispatch, such as email, checking web sites, and other routine tasks. Certainly in some urgency-driven jobs, this is important, but for most intelligent knowledge workers these tasks are not the core of one’s productive output.

In theory it shouldn’t make any difference if you do the little stuff first and then the important stuff each day. Delaying the important stuff a few hours can’t hurt as long as it gets done, right? Maybe if you get all that little stuff cleared out of the way, you’ll be better able to focus on the big projects. You wouldn’t want those unanswered emails hanging over your head all day, right?

Lies, Lies, Lies

You know well enough what really happens. You never get to the important stuff. The little stuff multiplies. Pretty soon it’s 4pm, and you haven’t done a thing that’s going to matter five years from now. But you’ve checked your email a dozen times, had three coffee breaks, caught up on the latest news, read some trivial forum postings (and possibly made a few of your own), refilled your printer with fresh paper, replaced your empty tissue box, and cleaned your computer monitor. You’ve been busy, but you’ve accomplished nothing of enduring value to anyone. Your whole day was sucked away by unconscious habits instead of conscious action.

Doing little stuff first is one of the most insidious forms of procrastination because it seems like you’re being productive. You rationalize that you have plenty of time to handle the big stuff. And eventually you’ll get to the big stuff when the time pressure becomes great enough. But if that never happens, you may simply never get it done at all. And there’s a lot of big stuff that never becomes urgent until it’s too late. Opportunities won’t wait for you forever.

The truth is that many of us today have far more items on our to do lists than we can possibly complete. This is certainly true for me. It would take me at least two years just to complete what’s on my list right now. I know I’ll never be able to do all of them. Something has to give.

Every day I have a choice between working on pointless little tasks or big meaningful projects. On days that I choose the former, I end each day feeling I’ve accomplished very little, even though I’ve put in a lot of hours at my desk. I’ve kept up, but all I did was spin my wheels for another day. But when I chose to do the important stuff first, I feel great, knowing that I’m on my way to producing major results.

All tasks are not equal. Some tasks yield an enormous payoff for the time invested into them. Other tasks yield virtually no benefit. With more tasks than time, there’s no choice but to procrastinate, so the key is to procrastinate consciously. Put off those tasks that produce little or no value as long as possible, and invest the extra time in the real winners.

Despite being fairly organized, I’m constantly procrastinating on low-value tasks. I needed a haircut about a month ago, and I still haven’t gotten one yet. I delay most accounting work to the last possible minute. I still drive a 1994 Pontiac with 157,000 miles on it because I barely want to take the time to shop for a new car.

I don’t pay my bills late or put off tasks which will have serious negative consequences, but if the negative consequence of a delay is negligible, then I will usually put the task off as long as I can.

As many people know, sometimes procrastination pays off. Often those little tasks will simply die. Something changes, and they no longer need to be done at all. Other times new resources will appear that make the task easier to complete. And a little time pressure can make it possible to complete a task faster than when time is abundant. Sure I’ve gotten some bad haircuts now and then because I favor speed over quality, but I can’t say it’s ever mattered in the long run. This approach seems to work well enough for Bill Gates and Donald Trump.

Email is one area where I consciously procrastinate each day. I could pat myself on the back for doing a great job responding to all my email, but the truth is that I’m lousy at replying to email. This is by choice, however. I always handle the truly important communication promptly, and I’ll be the first to admit that some real gems come via email now and then, but I’m fairly brutal in how I define what’s important enough to warrant a reply. I typically limit my email processing to about 15 minutes per day. That’s totally unreasonable considering the volume of email I receive, but I’m willing to accept poor performance in that area in order to boost my performance elsewhere. By declining to reply to a lot of emails that seem like they deserve a reply, I’m able to devote more time to non-urgent tasks. For example, yesterday morning I took my two-year-old son out for a few hours of one-on-one time, and later that day I went to an improv comedy workshop to improve my humor skills (next week I’ll be performing in my first live show). I’ve also been spending time this week teaching my daughter to read. I’ll never get a “round to-it” that tells me I must do these things right now, so I have to procrastinate on urgent, low-priority tasks, often to the point where I simply don’t do them at all.

The world won’t spin off its axis if I don’t reply to every piece of legitimate email. But there will be significant negative consequences if I blow off my kids, my personal growth, and my health to answer “just one more email.” So if you’re one of the thousands of people who emailed me and didn’t get a response, now you know why. I’m sorry to say you’ve been triaged. I like you. I care about your growth. I’d love to be able to support you one-on-one as you requested. Unfortunately, the price is just too high.

My point isn’t that you should blow off email but that you should make a conscious choice about which activities are truly important to you and which aren’t. This is easy to say but very difficult to practice. I struggle with it every day. Staying conscious is indeed a challenge, especially when so much of our world is designed to drive us back into unconsciousness (where we’re more easily programmed to buy stuff we don’t need).

I find the best way to use conscious procrastination is to extend my time perspective 5, 10, or 20 years ahead. In a matter of seconds, I can sense the long-term significance of any choice. It’s clear to me that being great at replying to email can never justify the time cost. If I spend 2 hours a day on email (like many others in my situation would), that’s 3650 hours over the next 5 years, the equivalent of 91 40-hour weeks. Now I don’t know about you, but I can think of quite a few things to do with 91 weeks that would produce more benefit than answering email. And if I project 10 years ahead, well, … you get the idea.

How many weeks of your life have you already thrown away doing low priority tasks that in the long run just didn’t matter? Where would you be now if you blew off the least important 50% of your email over the past 5 years? The least important 80%? 95%? Are you in need of a conscious reassessment of your true priorities?

You see, when you don’t use conscious procrastination, you end up with regular procrastination by default. And this means that you’ll be making some huge judgment errors, putting far too much emphasis on urgent tasks that are staring you in the face, like unanswered emails or unread newsgroups, instead of investing in long-term, high payoff tasks that seldom become urgent. This includes starting your own business, finding a fulfilling relationship, improving your diet, and educating yourself.

When I think about the things I would have had to give up in order to answer 1000 more emails over the past year, there’s just no contest. And as my volume of email continues to increase, I still try to hold myself to about 15 minutes per day, so as traffic grows, I become increasingly selective.

Ultimately it comes down to asking questions like these: Would I rather answer this email or start my own blog? Can I blow off laundry for a day in order to talk to my wife about how to improve our relationship? Should I skip a party to go to a Toastmasters meeting?

Procrastination can be a valuable servant if used consciously, but it’s a harsh master when used unconsciously. Instead of letting procrastination run your life, take control of this beast and make it your servant instead of your master. It requires discipline to consciously delay seemingly urgent tasks, but if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll see that you simply don’t have enough time to do what’s most important to you if you squander your time on low payoff tasks. As Jim Rohn says, “The pain of discipline weighs ounces, but the pain of regret weighs tons.” You must learn to say “No!” to those things that cannot and will not help you live the life you want.

Will you invest your time in what really matters to you, or will your tombstone ultimately read like this:

Here lies John, who passed away
While answering his email one day.
No friend, no child, no loving mate
Could keep poor John from working late.
With each new mail, he worked like hell
To click ”reply” instead of “del.”
A prompt response he’d always give
But somehow he forgot to live.

Yes, I just made that up. Perhaps the improv classes are paying off.

Procrastination hack: “(10+2)*5”

Who it’s for

• procrastinators
• the easily distracted
• compulsive web-surfers
• people with a long list of very short tasks (a/k/a “mosquitos”)
• people having trouble chipping away at very large tasks

What you’ll need

1. a timer
   • must be easy to reset
   • electronic kitchen timer is particularly good (pref. with multiple alarm memories), or
   • an app like Minuteur (get the newest version—several cool new features)
2. a reduced subset of your to-do list
   • tasks that can be worked on (not necessarily completed) in blocks of 10 minutes or less
   • GTD people: next actions only, please
3. an hour of your time (less is potentially okay, but it’s non-canonical)
4. your sorry, procrastinating ass

How it works

It’s called “(10+2)*5” and here’s why:

• 10 - Work for ten minutes with single-minded focus on moving toward completion on a single task. Ten minutes, and that’s all you’re allowed to do is work, work, work. No cheating, because (DING!) you actually get a break when you’re done…
• 2 - After ten minutes of sweaty, dedicated work you get a 2-minute break to do whatever you want—drink coffee, read 5ives, call your bookie, whatever. When the two minutes are up, it’s back to work on the next task on your list. This is important.
• *5 - You’re going to iterate this four more times for a total of one hour’s working/breaking

Important squirrely rules

• You do not need to finish your task or your project in ten minutes; you just need to move it forward
• If you finish a satisfying amount of work in fewer than ten minutes, STOP, and go right to your 2-minute break, than start another 10-minute dash
• Do NOT skip breaks! You are not allowed. Breaks cannot be missed. Period. Go surf the web. Now. Seriously. GO!

What will happen

You’ll blaze through an hour’s worth of work/not work and will find yourself looking forward to both the breaking and working parts of the cycle. (Dang, how’s that for a change?)

The MacGuffin

The Now Habit
by Neil Fiore

Okay, you caught me. That’s the hack: you can and eventually will skip breaks.

In his (extremely wonderful) The Now Habit, Neil Fiore suggests a similar habit of “unscheduling,” where you only make obligations to the things that you enjoy and that are not the source of procrastination. John Perry suggests “Structured Procrastination,” where you only give high priority to “unimportant” tasks. Of course, this is taken to a hilarious extreme with Joshua Newman’s plan for scheduling just a few minutes of work per hour, and then focusing on the “more important” tasks like DVD re-arranging.

In all these cases—each of which will surely seem ludicrous to the “Why don’t you just go do your damned work?” crowd—the trick is to snap your mind out of the inert state that’s allowing procrastination to take over. You’re breaking down whatever resistance has made you not do what your brain knows needs to be done.

Your hacks for your problems

“(10+2)*5” can be adapted in any number of ways (change any of the three numerals to your liking), but remember: these goofy hacks only work because you’re a pathetic bastard like me whose mind can be tricked into work as easily as it can be lulled into torpor. Set your rules, follow your rules, and keep moving forward. Snap that procrastination by slipping your work through the back door.

Now go take a break. You’ve earned, you hard-working hacker, you.

How to Achieve More With Your Time

This set of articles explains Time Management. Time Management is a set of related common-sense skills that help you to use your time in the most effective and productive way possible.

By using Time Management skills you can learn to:

* Determine which of the things you do are important, and which can be dropped
* Use your time in the most effective way possible
* Increase the time in which you can work
* Control the distractions that waste your time and break your flow
* Increase your effectiveness and reduce stress

By becoming more effective in your use of working time, you can reduce stress by:

* being more in control of what you do
* being productive, and secure in your job because of this
* enjoying what you do
* giving yourself more quality time to relax and enjoy life outside work.

The Central Shift in Attitude
At the heart of the subject is a simple, but obvious, shift in focus:

Concentrate on results, not on being busy

Many people spend their days in a frenzy of activity, but achieve very little because they are not concentrating on the right things.

This is neatly summed up in the Pareto Principle*, or the 80/20 rule. This states that typically 80% of unfocussed effort generates only 20% of results, and that the remaining 80% of results are achieved with only 20% of the effort. By applying time management, including planning, we aim to change this to ensure that we concentrate as much of our effort as possible on the high payoff tasks. This ensures that we achieve the greatest payoff possible with our investment of time.

Why don't people manage their time?
Despite the benefits of time management, very many people do not use it. This can be because:

* they don't know about it
* they are too lazy to plan
* they enjoy the adrenaline buzz of meeting tight deadlines
* they enjoy crisis management

The problem with crisis management and tight deadlines is that while they can be fun, often they can lead to high levels of stress, a disrupted private life, tiredness and, occasionally, to failure of projects.
Mind Tools Time Management
This section on time management shows you how use your time in the most effective way possible.

It concentrates on the following 'how to' areas:

* Evaluating your use of time
* Focussing on your priorities
* Planning for effective use of time
* Using time more effectively
* Creating more time
* Avoiding distractions

Following this we explain some of the tools that help in time management:

* The Activity Log
* Delegation
* SWOT
* Reading Skills
* Writing Skills
* Phone Skills
* Prioritised To Do
* Time assessment, and PERT

6 Tips for Better Time Management

Make a Time Diary

Take a week and plot out what you do every day. Be honest. If you watch 25 hours of TV each week, write it down.

"This is a painful awakening for most people," says Jana Jasper. "You have to include everything --- gym time, eating, driving, weekly meetings, all of it. It can be upsetting to see how little unstructured time we allow ourselves. But it's difficult to make intelligent decisions about using your time more effectively if you don't know what you're doing with your time now."

Learn to Say "No"

Turn off your cell phone and beeper. When someone asks you to do something that you really don't have time to do, say so, politely, but firmly. And don't allow yourself to feel guilty.

"One reason we are feeling so busy all the time is that we are worse at setting personal boundaries around what we'll say 'no' to," says Jana Kemp, founder and president of Meeting & Management Essentials, a time-management consultancy in Boise, Idaho.

Part of declining to do things, is focusing on your goals, Kemp explains. Your time diary can help in this regard. Once you've blocked time for important, but often not scheduled activities, sign on for only those things that are important, family, friends and health. Once you know exactly what you have time to do, turning down things that don't fit into your priorities is easier.

Time-Based, To-Do List

"Create a to-do list that includes how much time you'll spend on each item on the list," says Moland. Lists are always helpful, but when you add how much time each task should take, it helps prioritize how you go about the tasks. When you prioritize tasks you naturally focus on those that you can do immediately.

Let Your Computer Help

Technology helped get you into the time bind in the first place, so use it to help get you out. Try some of the many personal scheduling software programs that allow you to keep a calendar, "to-do' lists, and phone and address books on your computer.

"It's not enough to be efficient anymore," said Jasper. "The goal here is to use the technology to get rid of all the paper in your life. I can't stress enough how important this is."

Much of organizing, these experts say, comes from streamlining your life. The more clutter you have in your life -- phone numbers on slips of paper, business cards in notebooks, a desk piled high with calendars and lists -- the more likely you are to waste time trying to stay organized and on top of things,

Multitask

Is there a more overused buzzword today? We all combine several activities into one all the time. Some multitasking is dangerous. Talk on the phone while driving and your chances of being involved in a traffic accident rise dramatically. That being said, lots of activities can be effectively and safely combined. Listen to books on tape while commuting. When you watch television, pay your bills.

"Women are better able to multitask than men," said Moland. "Even if both partners work full time, the woman usually is able to still think about the children's schedule, the home, the meals. Men are better able to focus in on one task at a time -- and women can learn from this at times."

Don't Be a Perfectionist

There's nothing wrong with being ordinary. Perfectionism, otherwise known as paying excessive attention to every detail, important or not, is a kind of procrastination.

"Set rational goals for yourself," says Jasper. "It's a fine thing to strive to be your best. It's counter productive to try to be the very best."

Setting unattainable expectations of yourself just adds stress to your life, Kemp explains.

Reward Yourself

Finally, don't let any progress, however small, go unrewarded.

"Use your time diary to make decisions about how you want to organize your time better," said Jasper. "As you make progress in prioritizing and saying 'no,' let yourself enjoy that. It doesn't have to be a big reward, maybe it can be as simple as spending some time by yourself or getting a massage. It's important to acknowledge and enjoy your success."

Tips on Effective Time Management

Karen M. Williams
In a small business, poor management of time will prevent the business from reaching its full potential. Many demands are made on you because you are totally responsible for operating the business. The workday can be long, tiring and frustrating due to poor planning and people controlling your time and work. Time is wasted doing things that should be done in a few moments or not at all. All of us have the same amount of time; the challenge is using this resource effectively. What follows are suggestions on using your time more effectively so your business will achieve optimum performance.
· Avoid crises (no fire fighting)
· Gain a feeling of accomplishment
· Do the things that benefit you and your business
· Enjoy your life. Do only things that matter.
Where Do I Start?
The best place to start managing time better is with yourself! Resolve to manage your time and not let time manage you. When you face the fact that you may be the cause of some of your time problems, you are ready to change your habits.
Where Does My Time Go?
Time management problems often stem from poor work habits; therefore, you need to analyze how you spend your time. It's a good idea to keep a log for several days, listing your activities and how much time you spend on them. After three or four days, look at these activities and ask yourself: What major activities or events cause me to use my time ineffectively? Which tasks can be performed only by me, and which activities can be delegated, better controlled or eliminated?
After this exercise, you may be able to pinpoint your own time wasters.
20 Major Time Wasters
External
· Telephone interruptions
· Meetings
· Visitors
· Socializing
· Lack of information
· Excessive paperwork
· Communication breakdown
· Lack of policies and procedures
· Lack of competent personnel
· Red tape
Internal
· Procrastination
· Failure to delegate
· Unclear objectives
· Failure to set priorities
· Crisis management
· Failure to plan
· Poor scheduling
· Lack of self-discipline
· Attempting to do too much at once
· Lack of relevant skills
How Should I Direct My Time?
By using goals, of course. If you specify your destination before you begin, you will make the best use of your time. Being specific is no more than setting goals. Without goals you become sidetracked easily and waste time.
Set Goals and List Priorities
Determine what you really want to accomplish. This requires setting long-range goals and allocating specific blocks of time to each. Goals should be put in writing and reviewed frequently. A goal that is not in writing is merely a dream.
To make these goals operational, a daily "to-do" list should be used. Each workday should begin with a plan of tasks and the priority of each task. In budgeting your time, allocate part of each day to tasks that will lead to accomplishment of your goals. That is, block out part of your day or week for major projects to ensure that you have time to do the important things.
Remember the 19th-century Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto's 80/20 rule. This rules states that 80 percent of all that happens at work is really the result of 20 percent effort. For example, 80 percent of the dollar value of an inventory is often found in 20 percent of the items. Eighty percent of all telephone calls come from 20 percent of the callers, or 80 percent of meals ordered in a restaurant come from 20 percent of the items on the menu.
With your goals, you can be 80 percent effective by achieving 20 percent of your goals. If you have a daily to-do list of 10 items, you generally can expect to be 80 percent effective by successfully completing only the two most important items on your list.
To be effective, you must concentrate on the most important items first. Therefore, proceed through the day from the most important to the least important items. Make this a daily habit. (You'll find that you will complete the A as well as the C priorities.)
Making Your To-Do List
Principles of Scheduling
· Block time-Reserve a block of time that cannot be interrupted and use this time to accomplish tasks that need your attention.
· Use the power of habit to accomplish tasks in your to-do list.
· Force yourself to stay with an activity until it is completed.
· Identify and use prime time, both internal and external. Don't schedule heavy-thinking projects from 8 to 10 a.m. if you are an afternoon person.
· Do not schedule all of your time. This unscheduled time will help in case of emergencies.
· Bring big projects into manageable bites. For example, plan only to do sit-down projects and make a list of all your potential business contacts. Another day put together an address and telephone list. Then plan to call three to four persons a day.
· People tend to schedule the urgent but not the important. Include time for planning, preparation, thinking, socializing, recreation and travel.
· Include activities that relate to your long term goals. These may be family, personal or spiritual goals. These may be important to your health or your relationship with family and non-business friends.
How Can I Make Better Use of My Time?
Break old habits and make new ones by-
· Setting up a routine that contrasts with your old way of doing things.
· Not allowing an exception to occur until the new habit is firmly established.
· Take time to start changing old habits now-don't procrastinate!
10 Good Time Management Habits
· Consolidate similar tasks-group similar jobs and do them concurrently. This eliminates a lot of sporadic behavior.
· Tackle tough jobs first-quit doing petty tasks and tackle the big jobs first. Remember the 80/20 rule. You will find you will be able to finish big jobs without stress.
· Delegate and develop others-delegation is not a dumping ceremony. Break the "Do-It-Yourself" habit and let others learn to share responsibility in operating the business. You will find you have more time for major tasks.
· Learn to use idle time-when there seems to be down time, read a book, write a memo or plan what needs to be done in the business. Get control of the paper flow-handle each piece of paper only once-throw out junk, and don't pick up a piece of paper unless you plan to use it.
· Avoid the cluttered desk syndrome-a clear desk helps you to think clearly, locate papers easier and keep your mind on the task at hand.
· Get started immediately on important tasks-no matter how much you hate doing a task, do it. Remember, you must change old habits. Try rewarding yourself at the end of the day. This will motivate self-discipline.
· Reduce meeting time-ask yourself if a meeting is necessary. Will a phone call do just as well? If a meeting is a must, try a standup one; this will guarantee that the important issue is addressed. Take time to plan-without it, how will you know what needs to be accomplished for a day, week, month or several years?
· Learn to say no. This requires practice, but the more you say it, the less guilty you will feel and the more jobs you are committed to.
In conclusion, your ability to manage time effectively could separate you from unsuccessful business people. Unless you manage your time, you will be unable to manage much else.
As one anonymous author said, "Time and tide wait for no one."
Remember to-
· Start with yourself and analyze how you waste valuable time.
· Decide to change poor working habits by replacing them with effective tasks.
· Set yearly, monthly, weekly and daily goals and then develop strategies to reach these goals.
· Write a to-do list with the 80/20 rule in mind-do the most important things first.
Don't get discouraged; it may take years to become proficient at managing time. The point is that the little positive changes you make on a daily basis will prove beneficial when, a year from now, your stress level has diminished and you are enjoying owning and operating your business.

Time management tips

1. There is always time to do more, most people, even the productive, have a day that is at least forty percent slack.

2. Do the most important things first in the day and don't let anybody stop you. Estimate "most important" using a zero discount rate. Don't make exceptions. The hours from 7 to 12 are your time to build for the future before the world descends on you.

3. Some tasks (drawing up outlines?) expand or contract to fill the time you give them. Shove all these into times when you are pressed to do something else very soon.

4. Each day stop writing just a bit before you have said everything you want to. Better to approach your next writing day "hungry" than to feel "written out." Your biggest enemy is a day spent not writing, not a day spent writing too little.

5. Blogging builds up good work habits; the deadline is always "now."

Tips for avoid procrastination and success

Ever notice that the time you have to work on a project or assignment disappears with very little actually being completed? You are not alone. Students, and adults, everywhere could use a tip or two on managing their time to be more efficient.

Before you start working

1. Make sure you understand the assignment/project and what is to be completed. Ask the teacher all questions before you start to work.

2. If working in a group, discuss the assignment to make all members understand what is to be done.

3. List all tasks that must be done to complete the assignment/project, don't worry about what is the most important yet.

4. Prioritize your tasks. On your list, number the tasks in order of importance. Rewrite the list if necessary. Make sure the tasks can be completed in a timely manner - do not have a task that is next to impossible to complete in the time allotted (for example: rewrite a Shakespeare play in modern English in a 54 minute period).

5. If working in a group, delegate responsibilities. Divide up the tasks as equally as possible and assign people jobs that best complement their strengths (for example: give the artist of the group the drawing tasks).

6. Plan what needs to be finished and when. Individually or as a group, set deadlines so as not to get stuck or in a rut on a particular task.

Let's go already

1. Once you have your personal list of priorities, start on the most important one. If it is a larger task, divide it into smaller ones.

2. As you finish a task, cross it off your list. This will give you a sense of accomplishment and show that you are really making progress.

3. Concentrate only on the task at hand. Do not be distracted by the other items to be completed; you will get to them later.

4. Put yourself into an environment that suits your working style. If you need to isolate yourself from your fellow students to work efficiently, do it! Put distracting items away or move away from them.

5. Once you have finished a task, move on to the next one. You can go back and make small changes later.

Tips for success

1. Take on only what you can handle in the time allotted. If you get overwhelmed with too much work, you might just decide to give up.

2. If you can't work efficiently with friends, then don't. It is always tempting to talk with your friends about the latest movie, what your did last weekend, or who likes who, but save those conversations for lunch, break, or recess!

3. Make sure your goals are realistic. This works two ways, don't make them too difficult or too easy.

4. Never lose site of the end product. While completing the individual tasks, remember they are part of a larger assignment/project.

5. Know what you are looking for. When doing research, avoid wasting time by knowing exactly what you are trying to find.

Tips to avoid procrastination

1. Don't draw out the planning process; just get it done and start working.

2. Complete the task and move on, don't be a perfectionist. Go back to it if you have time later.

3. If it is not the most exciting task, don't let boredom distract you. An even better reason to get it done. Some some self-discipline.

4. Putting a task off until the last minute can result in the task being incomplete or of a lesser quality. It can also affect tasks that require the completion of an earlier item. In the end, don't procrastinate.

Do It Now

When going to college many years ago, I decided to challenge myself by setting a goal to see if I could graduate in only three semesters, taking the same classes that people would normally take over a four-year period. This article explains in detail all the time management techniques I used to successfully pull this off.

In order to accomplish this goal, I determined I'd have to take 30-40 units per semester, when the average student took 12-15 units. It became immediately obvious that I'd have to manage my time extremely well if I wanted to pull this off. I began reading everything I could find on time management and putting what I learned into practice. I accomplished my goal by graduating with two Bachelor of Science degrees (computer science and mathematics) in just three semesters without attending summer school. I slept seven to eight hours a night, took care of my routine chores (shopping, cooking, etc), had a social life, and exercised for 30 minutes every morning. In my final semester, I even held a full time job (40 hours a week) as a game programmer and served as the Vice Chair of the local Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) chapter while taking 37 units of mostly senior-level computer science and math courses. My classmates would add up all the hours they expected each task to take and concluded that my weeks must have consisted of about 250 hours. I graduated with a 3.9 GPA and also received a special award given to the top computer science student each year. One of my professors later told me that they had an easy time selecting the award recipient once it became clear to them what I was doing.

I wasn't considered a gifted child, and this was the first time I had ever done anything like this. I didn't have any personal mentors helping me, I didn't know of anyone who'd done anything like this before, and I can't recall a single person encouraging me to do it. In fact, most people were highly discouraging of the idea when I told them about it. This was simply something I decided to do for myself. If you want a better understanding of where I was at this time in my life and why I decided to attempt such a crazy thing, you might enjoy reading The Meaning of Life: Intro, which includes the full background story and more details about my motivation for doing this.

It took a lot of convincing to get the computer science department chair to approve my extra units every semester, and my classmates often assumed I was either cheating or that I had a twin or that I was just mentally unstable (I get accused of that last one pretty much every week, so maybe there's some truth to it). Most of the time I kept quiet about what I was doing, but if someone asked me how many units I was taking, I didn't deny it. I was perhaps the only student at the university with a two-page class schedule, so it was easy to prove I was telling the truth if anyone pressed me, but rarely did I ever do so.

I didn't tell you this story to impress you but rather to make you curious as to how I did it. I pulled this off by applying time management concepts that most people simply didn't know but that were readily available in books and audio programs at the time (1992-93). The time management habits I learned in college have served me very well in building my business, so I want to share them with you in the hopes that you'll find them equally valuable. They allowed me to shave years off my schooling while also giving me about $30,000 to start my business (all earned in my final semester as a game programmer, mostly from royalties). Without further ado, here's the best of what I've learned about mastering time management:

Clarity is key.

The first step is to know exactly what you want. In a Tae Kwon Do studio where I used to train, there's a huge sign on the wall that says, "Your goal is to become a black belt." This helps remind each student why s/he is going through such difficult training. When you work for yourself, it's easy to spend a whole day at your desk and accomplish nothing of value. This almost always happens when you aren't really clear about what it is you're trying to do. In the moments when you regain your awareness, ask yourself, "What exactly is it that I'm trying to accomplish here?" You must know your destination with as much clarity as possible. Make your goals specific, and put them in writing. Your goals must be so clear that it would be possible for a stranger to look at your situation objectively and give you an absolute "yes" or "no" response as to whether you've accomplished each goal or not. If you cannot define your destination precisely, how will you know when you've arrived?

The key period I've found useful for defining and working on specific goals is ninety days, or the length of one season. In that period of time, you can make dramatic and measurable changes if you set crystal clear goals. Take a moment to stop and write down a snapshot description of how you want your life to be ninety days from now. What will your monthly income be? How much will you weigh? Who will your friends be? Where will you be in your career? What will your relationship be like? What will your web site look like? Be specific. Absolute clarity will give you the edge that will keep you on course.

Just as an airplane on autopilot must make constant corrections to stay on course, you must periodically retarget your goals. Reconnect with your clear, written goals by re-reading them every morning. Post them on your walls, especially your financial goals. Years ago (during the mid-90s), I went around my apartment putting up signs in every room that said "$5,000 / month." That was my monthly business income goal at the time. Because I knew exactly what I wanted, I achieved that goal within a few weeks. I continued setting specific income goals, even amidst occasional setbacks, and I found this process very effective. It wasn't just that it helped me focus on what I wanted -- perhaps even more important is that it make it easy for me to disregard those things that weren't on the path to my goal. For example, if you set a goal to earn $10,000/month, this can help you stop doing those things that will only earn you $5000/month.

If you aren't yet at the point of clarity, then make that your first goal. It's a big waste of time to go through life being unclear about what you want. Most people wallow way too long in the state of "I don't know what to do." They wait for some external force to provide them with clarity, never realizing that clarity is self-created. The universe is waiting on you, not the other way around, and it's going to keep waiting until you finally make up your mind. Waiting for clarity is like being a sculptor staring at a piece of marble, waiting for the statue within to cast off the unneeded pieces. Do not wait for clarity to spontaneously materialize -- grab a chisel and get busy!

Be flexible.

There's a key difference between knowing your destination and knowing the path you will take to get there. A typical commercial airplane is off course 90% of the time, yet it almost always arrives at its destination because it knows exactly where it's going and makes constant corrections along the way. You cannot know the exact path to your goal in advance. I believe that the real purpose of planning is simply so that you remain convinced that a possible path exists. We've all heard the statistic that 80% of new businesses fail in their first five years, but a far more interesting statistic is that nearly all of the businesses that succeeded did not do so in the original way they had intended. If you look at successful businesses that started with business plans, you will commonly find that their original plans failed miserably and that they only succeeded by trying something else. It is said that no business plan survives contact with the marketplace. I like to generalize this to say that no plan survives contact with the real world.

Renowned author and business consultant Stephen Covey often uses the expression, "integrity in the moment of choice." What that means is that you should not follow your plans blindly without conscious awareness of your goals. For instance, let's say you're following your plans nicely -- so far so good -- and then an unforeseen opportunity arises. Do you stick to your original plan, thereby missing the opportunity, or do you stop and go after the opportunity, thereby throwing yourself off schedule? This is where you have to stop and reconnect with your goals to decide which is the better course. No plan should be followed blindly. As soon as you gain new knowledge that could invalidate the plan, you must exercise integrity in the moment of choice. Sometimes you can reach your goals faster by taking advantage of shortcuts that arise unexpectedly. Other times you should stick to your original plans and avoid minor distractions that would take you further from your goals. Be tight on your goals but flexible on your plans.

I believe that having a clear goal is far more important than having a clear plan. In school I was very clear about my end goal -- graduate college in only three semesters -- but my plans were in a constant state of flux. Every day I would be informed of new assignments, projects, or tests, and I had to adapt this ever-changing sea of activity. If I tried to make a long-term plan for each semester, it would have been rendered useless within 24 hours.

Use single handling.

Instead of using some elaborate organizing system, I stuck with very basic a pen-and-paper to do list. My only organizing tool was a notepad where I wrote down all my assignments and their deadlines. I didn't worry about doing any advance scheduling or prioritizing. I would simply scan the list to select the most pressing item which fit the time I had available. Then I'd complete it, and cross it off the list.

If I had a 10-hour term paper to write, I would do the whole thing at once instead of breaking it into smaller tasks. I'd usually do large projects on weekends. I'd go to the library in the morning, do the necessary research, and then go back to my dorm room and continue working until the final text was rolling off my printer. If I needed to take a break, I would take a break. It didn't matter how big the project was supposed to be or how many weeks the professor allowed for it. Once I began an assignment, I would stay with it until it was 100% complete and ready to be turned in.

This simple practice saved me a significant amount of time. First, it allowed me to concentrate deeply on each assignment and to work very efficiently while I worked. A lot of time is lost in task switching because you have to re-load the context for each new task. Single handling minimizes time lost in task switching. In fact, when possible I would batch up my assignments within a certain subject area and then do them all at once before switching subjects. So I'd do all my math homework in a row until it was all done. Then I'd do all my programming assignments. Then I'd do my general education homework. In this manner I would put my brain into math-mode, programming-mode, writing-mode, or art-mode and remain in that single mode for as long as possible. Secondly, I believe this habit helped me remain relaxed and unstressed because my mind wasn't cluttered with so many to-do items. It was always just one thing at a time. I could forget about anything that was outside the current context.

Failure is your friend.

Most people seem to have an innate fear of failure, but failure is really your best friend. People who succeed also fail a great deal because they make a lot of attempts. The great baseball player Babe Ruth held the homerun record and the strikeout record at the same time. Those who have the most successes also have the most failures. There is nothing wrong or shameful in failing. The only regret lies in never making the attempt. So don't be afraid to experiment in your attempts to increase productivity. Sometimes the quickest way to find out if something will work is to jump right in and do it. You can always make adjustments along the way. It's the ready-fire-aim approach, and surprisingly, it works a lot better than the more common ready-aim-fire approach. The reason is that after you've "fired" once, you have some actual data with which to adjust your aim. Too many people get bogged down in planning and thinking and never get to the point of action. How many potentially great ideas have you passed up because you got stuck in the state of analysis paralysis (i.e. ready-aim-aim-aim-aim-aim...)?

During college I tried a lot of crazy ideas that I thought might save me time. I continued reading time management material and applying what I learned, but I also devised some original ideas. Most of my own ideas were flops, but some of them worked. I was willing to fail again and again for the off chance I might stumble upon something that gave me an extra boost.

Understand that failure is not the opposite of success. Failure is an essential part of success. Once you succeed, no one will remember your failures anyway. Microsoft wasn't Bill Gates' and Paul Allen's first business venture. Who remembers that their original Traf-o-Data business was a flop? The actor Jim Carey was booed off many a stage while a young comedian. We have electric light bulbs because Thomas Edison refused to give up even after 10,000 failed experiments. If the word "failure" is anathema to you, then reframe it: You either succeed, or you have a learning experience.

Letting go of the fear of failure will serve you well. If you're excited about achieving a particular goal, but you're afraid you might not be able to pull it off, jump on it and do it anyway. Even if you fail in your attempt, you'll learn something valuable and can make a better attempt next time. If you look at people who are successful in business today, you will commonly see that many of them had a string of dismal failures before finally hitting on something that worked, myself included. And I think most of these people will agree that those early failure experiences were an essential contributing factor in their future successes. My advice to anyone starting a new business is to begin pumping out products or devising services and don't worry much about whether they'll be hits. They probably won't be. But you'll learn a lot more by doing than you ever will by thinking.

Do it now!

W. Clement Stone, who built an insurance empire worth hundreds of millions dollars, would make all his employees recite the phrase, "Do it now!" again and again at the start of each workday. Whenever you feel the tendency towards laziness taking over and you remember something you should be doing, stop and say out loud, "Do it now! Do it now! Do it now!" I often set this text as my screen saver. There is a tremendous cost in putting things off because you will mentally revisit them again and again, which can add up to an enormous amount of wasted time. Thinking and planning are important, but action is far more important. You don't get paid for your thoughts and plans -- you only get paid for your results. When in doubt, act boldly, as if it were impossible to fail. In essence, it is.

It is absolutely imperative that you develop the habit of making decisions as soon as possible. I use a 60-second rule for almost every decision I have to make, no matter how big or important. Once I have all the data to make a decision, I start a timer and give myself only 60 seconds to make a firm decision. I'll even flip a coin if I have to. When I was in college, I couldn't afford to waste time thinking about assignments or worrying about when to do them. I simply picked one and went to work on it. And today when I need to decide which article to write next, I just pick a topic and begin writing. I believe this is why I never experience writer's block. Writer's block means you're stuck in the state of thinking about what to write instead of actually writing. I don't waste time thinking about writing because I'm too busy writing. This is probably why I've been able to write hundreds of original articles very easily. Every article I write spawns ideas for at least two more, so my ideas list only increases over time. I cannot imagine ever running out of original content.

Too often people delay making decisions when there is no advantage to be found in that delay. Usually delaying a decision will only have negative consequences, so even if you're faced with ambiguity, just bite the bullet and make a decision. If it turns out to be the wrong one, you'll know it soon enough. Many people probably spend more than 60 seconds just deciding what they'll eat for dinner. If I can't decide what to eat, I just grab an apple or a couple bananas and start eating, and sometimes I'm full of fruit before I figure out what I really would like to eat. So my brain knows that if it wants something other than fruit, it had better decide quickly. If you can speed up the pace of making decisions, you can spend the rest of your time on action.

One study showed that the best managers in the world tend to have an extremely high tolerance for ambiguity. In other words, they are able to act boldly on partial and/or conflicting data. Many industries today have accelerated to such a rapid pace that by the time you have perfect data with which to make any decision, the opportunity is probably long gone. Where you have no data to fall back on, rely on your own personal experience and intuition. If a decision can be made right away, make the decision as soon as it comes up. If you can't make a decision right away, set aside a time where you will consider the options and make the decision. Pour the bulk of your time into action, not deciding. The state of indecision is a major time waster. Don't spend more than 60 seconds in that state if you can avoid it. Make a firm, immediate decision, and move from uncertainty to certainty to action. Let the world tell you when you're wrong, and you'll soon build enough experience to make accurate, intelligent decisions.

Triage ruthlessly.

Get rid of everything that wastes your time. Use the trash can liberally. Apply the rule, "When in doubt, throw it out." Cancel useless magazine subscriptions. If you have a magazine that is more than two months old and you still haven't read it, throw it away; it's probably not worth reading. Realize that nothing is free if it costs you time. Before you sign up for any new free service or subscription, ask how much it will cost you in terms of time. Every activity has an opportunity cost. Ask, "Is this activity worth what I am sacrificing for it?"

In college I was downright brutal when it came to triage. I once told one on my professors that I decided not to do one of his assigned computer science projects because I felt it wasn't a good use of my time. The project required about 10-20 hours of work, and it involved some tedious gruntwork that wasn't going to teach me anything I didn't already know. Also, this project was only worth 10% of my grade in that class, and since I was previously acing the class anyway, the only real negative consequence would be that I'd end up with an A- in the course instead of an A. I told the professor I felt that was a fair trade-off and that I would accept the A-. I didn't try to negotiate with him for special treatment. So my official grade in the class was an A-, but I personally gave myself an A+ for putting those 10-20 hours to much better use.

Ask yourself this question: "Would I have ever gotten started with this project, relationship, career, etc. if I had to do it all over again, knowing what I now know?" If your answer is no, then get out as soon as possible. This is called zero-based thinking. I know a lot of people that have a limiting belief that says, "Always finish what you start." They spend years climbing ladders only to realize when they reach the top that the ladder was leaning against the wrong building. Remember that failure is your friend. So if a certain decision you've made in the past is no longer producing results that serve you, then be ruthless and dump it, so you can move onto something better. There is no honor in dedicating your life to the pursuit of a goal which no longer inspires you. This is another situation where you must practice integrity in the moment of choice. You must constantly re-assess your present situation to accurately decide what to do next. Whatever you've decided in the past is largely irrelevant if you would not renew that decision today.

Identify and recover wasted time.

Instead of watching a one-hour TV show, tape it and watch it in 45 minutes by fast-forwarding through the commercials. Don't spend a half hour typing a lengthy email when you could accomplish the same thing with a 10-minute phone call. Batch your errands together and do them all at once.

During the summer between my second and third semesters, I found an apartment across the street from campus that was slightly closer to the engineering building than my on-campus dorm room. So I moved out of the dorms and into that apartment, which saved me some walking/biking time every day. I was also moving from a two-bedroom dorm which I shared with two roommates into a smaller single-person studio apartment. This new apartment was much more efficient. For example, I could work on programming assignments while cooking dinner because my desk was only a few steps from the stove.

Trying to cut out time-wasting habits is a common starting point for people who desire to become more efficient, but I think this is a mistake. Optimizing your personal habits should only come later. Clarity of purpose must come first. If you don't have clarity, then your attempts to install more efficient habits and to break inefficient habits will only fizzle. You won't have a strong enough reason to put your time to good use, so it will be easy to quit when things get tough. You need a big, attractive goal to stay motivated. The reason to shave 15 minutes off a task is that you're overflowing with motivation to put that 15 minutes to better use.

For example, you might have a career you sort of like, but most likely it's not so compelling that you'll care enough about saving an extra 15 minutes here and there, even if your total savings might amount to a few hours each day. But if you've taken the time to develop a sense of purpose that reaches deep into your soul, you'll be automatically motivated to put your time to better use. If you get the highest level of your life in order (purpose, meaning, spiritual beliefs), the lower levels will tend to self-optimize (habits, practices, actions).

Apply the 80-20 rule.

Also known as the Pareto Principle, the 80-20 rule states that 20% of a task's effort accounts for 80% of the value of that task. This also means that 80% of a task only yields 20% of the value of that task. In college I was ruthless in my application of this principle. Some weeks I ditched as many as 40% of my classes because sitting through a lecture was not often the most effective way for me to learn. And I already noted that I would simply refuse to do an assignment if I determined it was not worth my time. There was one math class that I only showed up to twice because I could learn from the text book much more quickly than from the lectures. I only showed up for the midterm and final. I would pop my head in at the beginning of each class to drop off my homework and then again at the end of each class to write down the next assignment. I actually got the highest grade in that class, but the teacher probably had no idea who I was. The other students were playing by the rules, not realizing they were free to make their own rules. Find out what parts of your life belong in the crucial 20%, and focus your efforts there. Be absolutely ruthless in refusing to spend time where it simply cannot give you optimal results. Invest your time where it has the potential to pay off big.

Guard thy time.

To work effectively you need uninterrupted blocks of time in which you can complete meaningful work. When you know for certain that you won't be interrupted, your productivity is much, much higher. When you sit down to work on a particularly intense task, dedicate blocks of time to the task during which you will not do anything else. I've found that a minimum of 90 minutes is ideal for a single block.

You may need to negotiate with the other people in your life to create these uninterrupted blocks of time. If necessary, warn others in advance not to interrupt you for a certain period of time. Threaten them with acts of violence if you must. In school I would lock my bedroom door when I needed to work, so my roommates would know not to disturb me. While each individual bedroom in the two-bedroom dorm suites was designed for two people (four people per suite), I paid a bit extra to have a bedroom all to myself. This way I always had my own private room to work. When I had time to be social, I'd leave the door open, sometimes playing computer games with one of my roommates. If you happen to work in a high interruption environment that's negatively affecting your productivity, change that environment at all costs. Some people have told me that giving their boss a copy of this article helped convince him/her to take steps to reduce unnecessary interruptions.

While for some people it's helpful to block off a specific period of time for a task, I find that I work best with long, open-ended stretches of uninterrupted time. I'll often allocate a starting time for a task but usually not a specific finishing time. Whenever possible I just allow myself to stick with a task as long as I can, until I eventually succumb to hunger or other bodily needs. I will frequently work 6+ hours straight on a project without taking a break. While frequent breaks are often recommended to increase productivity, I feel that suggestion may be an artifact of industrial age research on poorly motivated workers and not as applicable to high-motivation, purpose-driven creative work. I find it's best for me to maintain momentum until I can barely continue instead of chopping a task into smaller chunks where there's a risk of succumbing to distractions along the way.

The state of flow, where you are totally absorbed in a task and lose all sense of time, takes about 15 minutes to enter. Every time you get interrupted, it can take you another 15 minutes to get back to that state. Once you enter the state of flow, guard it with your life. That is the state in which you will go through enormous amounts of work and experience total connection with the task. When I'm in this state, I have no sense of past or future. I simply feel like I'm one with my work.

While sometimes I suffer from the problem of the task expanding to fill the allotted time (aka Parkinson's Law), I often find that it's worth the risk. For example, when I do optimization work on my web site, I'll frequently think of new optimization ideas while I work, and I'll usually go ahead and implement those new ideas immediately. I find it more efficient to act on those ideas at the moment of conception instead of scheduling them to be done at a later time.

Work all the time you work.

During one of these sacred time blocks, do nothing but the activity that's right in front of you. Don't check email or online forums or do web surfing. If you have this temptation, then unplug your Internet connection while you work. Turn off your phone, or simply refuse to answer it. Go to the bathroom before you start, and make sure you won't get hungry for a while. Don't get out of your chair at all. Don't talk to anyone during this time.

Decide what it is you should be doing, and then do nothing but that. If you happen to manage others, periodically ask them what their #1 task is, and make sure they're doing nothing but that. If you see someone answering email, then it should be the most important thing for that person to be doing at that particular time. If not, then relatively speaking, that person is just wasting time.

If you need a break, then take a real break and do nothing else. Don't semi-work during a break if you feel you need rest and restoration. Checking email or web surfing is not a break. When you take a break, close your eyes and do some deep breathing, listen to relaxing music and zone out for a while, take a 20-minute nap, or eat some fresh fruit. Rest until you feel capable of doing productive work again. When you need rest, rest. When you should be working, work. Work with either 100% concentration, or don't work at all. It's perfectly fine to take as much down time as you want. Just don't allow your down time to creep into your work time.

Multitask.

The amount of new knowledge in certain fields is increasing so rapidly that everything you know about your line of work is probably becoming obsolete. The only solution is to keep absorbing new knowledge as rapidly as possible. Many of the skills I use in my business today didn't even exist five years ago. The best way I know to keep up is to multitask whenever possible by reading and listening to audio programs.

When watching TV, read a computer magazine during commercials. If you're a male, read while shaving. I use an electric shaver and read during the 2-3 minutes it takes me to shave each day. This allows me to get through about two extra articles a week -- that's 100 extra articles a year. This habit is really easy to start. Just grab a couple magazines, or print out some articles you wouldn't otherwise have time to read, and put them in your bathroom. Whenever you go out, carry at least one folded up article with you. If you ever have to wait in line, such as at the post office or the grocery store, pull out the article and read it. You will be amazed at how much extra knowledge you can absorb just by reading during other non-mental activities.

Listen to educational audio programs whenever you can. When you drive your car, always be listening to an educational audio program. Nightingale Conant sells excellent ones on a variety of subjects produced by experts in their fields. Most include about six hours of content and sell for around $60-70, and they are well worth the price. The material in these programs tends to be much more practical than what you would learn by taking classes at a university. Whereas people with degrees in marketing or business have been taught by college professors, you can learn about these subjects from millionaires and billionaires who know what works and what doesn't. One of the best ways to save time is to learn directly from people who already have the skills you want to master.

Multitasking was perhaps the most important low-level skill that allowed me to go through college in three semesters. My average weekday involved about seven or eight hours of classes. But on Tuesdays during my final semester, I had classes back to back from 9am until 10pm. Because I was taking about a dozen classes each semester, I would have several tests and projects due just about every week. I had no time to study outside of class because most of that time was used for my job. So I simply had to learn everything the first time it came up. If a teacher wrote out something on the board, I would memorize it then and there; I couldn't afford to learn things later and risk falling behind. During my slower classes, I would do homework, work out algorithms for my programming job, or refine my schedule. You can probably find numerous opportunities for multitasking. Whenever you do something physical, such as driving, cooking, shopping, or walking, keep your mind going by listening to audio tapes or reading.

The idea of multitasking may seem to contradict the previous piece of advice to work all the time you work. But whereas the previous tip refers to high intensity work where you must concentrate all your mental resources in order to do the best job you can, this tip addresses low intensity work where you have plenty of capacity to do other things at the same time, like standing in line, cooking dinner, flying on a plane, or walking from point A to point B. Multitasking shouldn't be used where it will significantly degrade your performance on a crucial task, but it should be intelligently used to take advantage of excess capacity. Take real breaks when you need them, but don't waste time in a state of partial effort. It's more efficient to cycle between working flat out and then resting completely.

Multitasking allows you to take your productivity to a new level. You might think it would be draining, but many people find it has the opposite effect. For me it was tremendously energizing to be getting so much done. The harder you work, the greater your capacity for work, and the more restorative your rest will be.

Experiment.

Everyone is different, so what works for you may well be different than what works for everyone else. You may work best in the morning or late at night. Take advantage of your own strengths, and find ways to compensate for your weaknesses. Experiment with listening to music while you work. I use the free WinAMP player, which can stream commercial-free radio directly to my computer all day long with a variety of channels to choose from. I find that classical and new age music, especially Mozart, is terrific for web development work. But for most routine tasks, listening to fast-paced techno/trance music helps me work a lot faster. I don't exactly know why, but I'm twice as productive when listening to really fast music as compared to listening to no music. On the other hand, music with vocals is detrimental to my productivity because it's too distracting. And when I really need to focus deeply, I'll listen to no music at all. Try a simple experiment for yourself, and see if certain forms of music can increase your productivity. For me the difference was dramatic.

Whenever you come up with a wacky new idea for increasing your productivity, test it and see what effect it has. Don't dismiss any idea unless you've actually tried it. Partial successes are more common than complete failures, so each new experiment will help you refine your time management practices. Even the ongoing practice of conducting sometimes foolish experiments will help condition you to be more productive.

Cultivate your enthusiasm.

The word "enthusiasm" comes from the Greek entheos, which means literally, "the god within." I really like that definition. I doubt it's possible to master the art of time management if you aren't gushingly enthusiastic about what you're going to do with your time. Go after what really inspires you. Don't chase money. Chase your passion. If you aren't enthusiastic about your work, then you're wasting your life. Switch to something else. Consider a new career altogether. Don't beat yourself up if your current career has become stale. Remember that failure is your friend. Listen to that god within you, and switch to something that excites you once again. The worst waste of time is doing something that doesn't make you happy. Your work should serve your life, not the other way around.

If you're like most people, you can get yourself motivated every once in a while, but then you get caught up and sink back down to a lower level of productivity, and you find it hard to continue with a project. How easy is it to start a new project when your motivation level is high? And how difficult is it to continue once your enthusiasm fades? Since most people are negative to one degree or another, you'll naturally lose your positive charge over time unless you actively cultivate your enthusiasm as a resource. I don't believe in pushing myself to do something I really don't want to do. If I'm not motivated, then getting myself to sit down and work productively is nearly impossible, and the work is almost painful. When you're highly motivated though, work feels like play.

While in college I could not afford to let my enthusiasm fade, or I'd be dead. I quickly learned that I needed to make a conscious effort to reinforce my enthusiasm on a daily basis. I always had my Walkman cassette player with me (there were no portable MP3 players back then), and while walking from one class to the next, I would listen to time management and motivational tapes. I also listened to them while jogging every morning. I kept my motivation level high by reinforcing my enthusiasm almost hourly. Even though I was being told by others that I would surely fail, these tapes were the stronger influence because I never went more than a few hours without plugging back in.

If your enthusiasm level is high, you can work so much more productively and even enjoy the normally tedious parts of your work. I've always found that whenever I want to take my business to a new level, I must take my thoughts to a new level first. When your thinking changes, then your actions will change, and your results will follow. Unless you're a naturally hyper person, your enthusiasm is going to need daily reinforcement. I recommend either listening to motivational tapes or reading inspiring books or articles for at least fifteen minutes every day. Whenever I've stopped doing this, I've found that self-doubt always returns, and my productivity drops off. It's truly amazing how constantly feeding your mind with positive material can maintain your enthusiasm indefinitely. And if you multitask, you can get this benefit without investing any extra time into it.

Eat and exercise for optimal energy.

During the summer before my last semester in college (1993), I became a lacto-ovo vegetarian, and I noticed a decent boost in my energy and especially in my ability to concentrate. Four years later (1997) I became a complete vegan (no animal products at all), and I've been one ever since, and this yielded an even bigger boost.

What you eat can have a profound effect on your productivity. Animal products take significantly more time and energy to digest than plant foods, and when your body must divert extra energy to digestion, it means you have less energy available for productive mental work. Effectively your work will seem harder while you're digesting meals containing animal products, and you'll be more inclined to succumb to distractions. So if you find yourself having a hard time focusing on mentally intense work after lunch, your diet may very well be the culprit. Even Benjamin Franklin credited eating lightly at lunch time as being a significant factor in his productivity. He claimed while his colleagues were sluggish and sleepy, he could continue to work productively the rest of the day.

Regular exercise is also necessary to maintain high energy and mental clarity. In college I would go running for 30 minutes first thing every morning before breakfast. And of course I'd be listening to motivational and educational tapes at the same time. This daily renewal kept me in good physical condition and helped me maintain my ideal weight. Furthermore, my class schedule kept me zigzagging around campus each day to attend all my classes, and I'd usually have to carry a 20-30 pound backpack full of textbooks with me. So even though I spent most of my weekdays sitting in classrooms, I still got plenty of daily exercise.

If you want to master time management, it makes sense to hone your best time management tool of all -- your physical body. Through diet and exercise you can build your capacity for sustained concentrated effort, so even the most difficult work will seem easier.

If you currently find yourself overweight, take a trip to a local gym or a sporting goods store, and find a dumbbell (or two) that weighs as much as the excess fat you're carrying around. Pick it up and walk around with it for a while. Become aware that this is what you're carrying around with you every day. Imagine how much lighter and easier everything would be if you could permanently put that weight down. Carrying some extra weight for training purposes is one thing, but if that weight is in the form of body fat, then you're never able to put it down and enjoy the benefits of that training. Make a committed decision to shed those extra pounds, and enjoy the lifelong benefits of living in a more efficient physical vehicle.

Maintain balance.

I don't think it's easy to sustain long-term productivity, health, and happiness if your life is totally unbalanced. To excel in one area, you can't let other areas lag behind and pull you down. While in college I made an effort to take off a full day each week to have a personal life. I exercised, went to parties, attended club meetings, played computer games and pool, and even had time to vacation in Las Vegas during my final semester. The high turnover rates at the end of "death march" projects are caused by a lack of balance. To focus exclusively on your primary work at the expense of every other area of your life will only hurt you in the long run. Maintain balance by paying attention to every area of your life. As you grow in your career, be sure that your personal life grows as well.

Probably my biggest regret about going through college in three semesters is that I never had a girlfriend during this time. While I had plenty of good friends (both male and female), got involved in clubs, and enjoyed fun social activities every week, I definitely didn't have enough time to pursue an intimate relationship on top of everything else. I remember one instance where a girl I knew was clearly interested in pursuing a relationship with me, and she started machinating to spend more time alone with me, but I couldn't take the bait because I just didn't have time for dating in a way that would be respectful towards her. I wouldn't have made her a very good boyfriend.

If I had to do it all over again, I think my college experience would have been even better if I'd stretched it to four or five semesters and allowed myself time for a girlfriend. It would have been great to have someone else to share my life with, not to mention all the other benefits of intimacy. At least I had plenty time for dating after graduating. Within a few months I had a steady girlfriend, and four years later we were married. She and I actually went to the same college at the same time, but we never happened to meet while we were there, although it turned out we had a few mutual acquaintances.

I believe the main goal of time management is to give you the power to make your life as juicy as you want it to be. By getting clear about what you want and then developing a collection of habits that allow you to efficiently achieve your goals, you'll enjoy a much richer, more fulfilling life than you would otherwise. When I look back on my college days from more than a decade in the future, I feel a sense of gratitude for the whole experience. I set an enormous stretch goal and grew tremendously as a person in the pursuit of that goal. It was one of the best times of my life.

If you wish to become more productive, then do so with the intention of improving the totality of your life from top to bottom. The reason to master time management is to take your good life and transform it into an exceptional one. Time management is not about self-sacrifice, self-denial, and doing more of what you dislike. It's about embracing more of what you already love.
http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/do-it-now.htm

To Do Lists - How we hate them!

Personally I have never been a great fan of to-do lists. If they work for you, fine, don't let me put you off. But I know I am not alone in finding them very difficult to manage.
The theory behind a to-do list goes something like this. First thing in the morning before you start anything else, you write down everything you have to do during the day (or even better do this as your last action the previous day). You then go carefully through the list and work out what order to do the items in the list. There are various methods of prioritising the list, but they all boil down to some form of balancing urgency and importance.
You can add items during the day as they arise, and allocate them appropriate priorities.
Then all you have to do is take action on each item in their prioritised order. Any items you have not actioned by the end of the day are carried forward to the next day's list.
The advantages of a to-do list are obvious: everything is prioritised; you know exactly what to do next; things which are urgent and/or important get done first; items don't get lost; and you have somewhere to write new things as they arise. What's more it's ideally suited for computerisation. What could be better?
There is only one disadvantage of a to-do list. It doesn't work!
There are two main reasons why it doesn't work. The first is that you never get more than a third of the way down the list. The second is that for every item that you cross off the list, you think of another three items to go on it.
The result is that you end up with a huge, growing, indigestible lump of unactioned items which gets tranferred day after day. Many of these will never become urgent or important enough to get actioned. And yet if they don't need doing, why are they on your list in the first place? First rule of time management: the question is not what priority something is, but whether it needs doing at all.
Now as I said earlier, I am not a great fan of to-do lists and never use them myself. But I am aware that many people like lists and like the satisfaction of crossing items off them. If you are one of these people, then here are some suggestions about how to make your list work better.
Keep your list on paper, not on a computer. There is something too clinical about computerised lists. They do not engage the whole mind in the way that a handwritten list, complete with crossings out, alterations, creases and general dog-earedness does.
Don't rewrite your list every day. Keep the same list going. That way you will become acutely conscious of how long items have been on it. The trouble with re-writing your list is that you lose the sense of history that comes from all the above-mentioned crossings out, etc.
Be extremely selective about what you put on the list. This is crucial. The key to a good to-do list is that you only put on it what you actually have time to do (and that means time to do allowing for all those "unforeseen" interruptions that happen every day without fail). That means that you must sift items before you put them on the list, not after. That will force you to keep your total work-load well under control.
Have a separate place to record new ideas. When you think of something new to do, don't write it straight onto your to-do list. Items should only go on your to-do list after they have been subjected to rigorous assessment as mentioned above. On the other hand it's important not to lose new ideas, so keep a separate list of "possible" actions.
Keep items small. Ideally an item should be small enough to be done in one session. So don't put down "Write Project X report", put down "Write outline for Project X report".
Don't prioritise your to-do list. This is heresy I know. But think about it. Prioritising things by importance implies that some things are not going to get done at all. If everything on your list really needs to be done, does it make any difference whether an "important" item is done before a "less important" item? It's a bit like someone barging to the head of a queue because they are an "important person". If there are enough "important people" the rest of us will never get served. Frankly the best order to do things in is the order they present themselves.
Cherrypick. In the real world of course it's not either possible or desirable to do things strictly in the order in which they present themselves. So a useful technique is to go through your list actioning the items you feel like doing at the time and ignoring the others. However it is very important to go through the list in order so that you look at every item on the way. Don't just randomly pick items from the list.
Always start from the beginning of the list. Whenever you come back to your list after a break, always start again from the beginning. That is where the oldest items are. Each time you come back, you will knock more of these items off. This is where keeping the same list on paper with all the crossings out which that entails can really help you. Crossing off an item is a satisfying feeling. Tearing up a completed page is a really fantastic feeling!
Use the same techniques on your mail box and your in-tray. The reason we tend to build up backlogs of e-mail and paper is because we cherrypick new items and never get back to the old items we have ignored. The solution to this is to reverse the order in which we deal with our mail. Re-order your mail box so the old e-mails are at the top. Then every time you deal with your e-mail, start from the top and work down. When you deal with your in-tray, take the papers out of the tray and turn them over so the old items are at the top. Simple!
http://www.markforster.net/index.php?view=46

Plan Your Day

# Visualize your long term picture of success and put it in writing. Review your goal frequently. Your goal should be specific, measurable, achievable and compatible with where you are now. There should be an end date as well. Steven Covey calls this "Begin with the end in mind."
# Try to do your planning at the same time every day. Use this time to review past accomplishments as well as future things to do.
# Use only one planner to keep track of your appointments. Keeping a separate business and personal planner creates confusion.
# Write out a To Do list every day. Include items that can be completed, such as "Prepare exhibits for monthly report", rather than just "Work on report."
# Separate your To Do list into A, B and C priorities. "A" items are important to your long term success, "B" may be urgent but not as important and "C" are those that would be nice to do if you get the time.
# Start with the A items. Don't work on a C just because it's easy to do. Also, break your A items into small manageable chunks, so they're easy to accomplish.
# Check off items as you complete them to give yourself a sense of accomplishment.
# Block off time in your planner for major activities. This might include a block of time for working alone on major tasks. If someone wants to meet you during that time, say "I'm sorry, I already have an appointment."
# Don't jam your day full of activities. Leave time for emergencies, special opportunities and thinking time.
# Be your own manager. Ask yourself if you have met your goals, and what changes you plan to make to achieve them.
# Do it now. People will often say "Call me next week, and we'll book an appointment then." Respond by saying, "Let's save ourselves a call and do it now."
# Always plan time for balance; include family, fitness, recreation, social and spiritual activities.
# Conduct a time study to see how you're doing and where the opportunities for improvement lie. Many people are only able to spend one quarter of their time on top priority activities. Moving this up to one third of the week means almost 4 more hours per week on key activities.

How to Have a 36 Hour Day

http://jon.zaadz.com/blog/2006/3/how_to_have_a_36_hour_day
How many times do you hear someone say “I wish there were more hours in the day” or something along those lines? The fact is that all of us are only given 24 hours. Having said that, how we spend those 24 hours varies radically from person to person. It's become a bit of a cliche by now but the 24 hours we have is the same 24 hours that Thomas Edison and Mother Theresa had and that Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates currently have. As the old song goes “It's in the way that you use it.”

But what if we had more than 24 hours in a day?

Not possible? I disagree. While we can never have more than 24 hours of chronological time I think it's very possible to have many more hours of functional time. In fact, I think it's probably possible to get up to 36 hours of functional time in your day if you do a few relatiively simple things. So without further ado, here is my prescription for the 36 hour day.

It's a list of ways to save time that you may or may not have thought of. Implement a few of them and you'll likely open up a couple of hours each day that you didn't previously have . Implement all of of them and you just might find yourself with too much time on your hands. File that under “Good Problem to Have” right? :)

So here are 10 ways that you can radically change your life and free up the time you didn't know that you could.

36 Hour Day Strategy #1: Optimize Your Sleep - Some of us can get by just fine on 3-5 hours a sleep a night (I'm jealous of you!) while others “need” 9+ hours to feel rested. Certainly a good portion of this is genetic and perhaps environmental. Having said that I tihnk that there are ways that all of us can sleep less and at the same time feel more rested. Here are a few suggestions:

Wake up at the same time every morning - I first came across this through Steve Pavlina's excellent blog. I've been trying it for a little while and totally dig it. It's a simple concept. Just set your alarm clock for the same time each morning, wake up when it goes off and then go to bed at night when you feel tired and not before. Steve claims it can free up 10-15 hours a week. I think he's totally right.

Make your room a quiet, dark cave - For too many people the bedroom is a source of activity, light and noise. Do your best to minimize the amount of sound in your bed room (consider buying an air cleaner or white noise generator if you live in noisy apartment building or neighborhood). Take steps to eliminate or reduce the light that comes into your bedroom while you sleep (heavy curtains or dark room material on the windows work well here). And do your darnedest to remove stimulus from your bedroom (e.g., TV, lots of clutter, etc.)

Experiment with polyphasic sleep - Polyphasic sleep is a sleeping pattern that proposes to reduce sleep down to 2-5 hours a day. I haven't tried it yet so I can't speak to its validity but you back to Steve's blog again for some great information on this unusual but potentially effective sleeping method.

Time Savings from Optimizing Your Sleep = Approximately 1.5 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #2: Optimize Your Diet

The human body spends more of its energy on digestion and elimination than anything else . What you put into your body in the form of food and drink will definitely have an impact on your energy levels as well the amount of sleep you'll need. A few years back I was pretty heavy into weightlifting and was eating a ton of calories and lots of protein every day. The result? I need to sleep a *ton* to feel rested. Sometimes 10-11 hours a night (the hard workouts didn't help either).

Now my diet has done a 180 and I'm eating a much better (but far from perfect) mix of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and healthy fats and oils. The difference in energy is dramatic and I sleep a lot less than I previously needed to. My diet still needs improvement but these changes have literally added hours to my days.

I'd recommend a few resources for people looking to save time by improving their diet. The first is Tony Robbins' Living Health course. Tony has more energy that any person I've ever seen and that's a great testament to his health and fitness regimen. He has based a lot of his information on the work of Dr. Robert Young and thus I would recommend Dr. Young's book The pH Miracle as well.

Finally, consider going on a cleanse. I recently went on a four-day cleanse as outlined in the pH Miracle book and I've had a lot more energy in the week and a half since I went off it. The book Juice Fasting and Detoxification also helped me through a pretty intense (both physically and emotionally) four days and I'd recommend that one as well.

Time Savings from Optimizing Your Diet = Approximately 1.5 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #3: Multi Task

OK, this is a given right. If you do two things at the same time you will be able to do more during your day. But isn't multitasking bad? The lady driving down the highway with her cell glued to her ear is probably not the best model for multitasking. The guy you had lunch with yesterday who checked his Blackberry 17 times before they brought the main course out isn't doing anyone any favors with his technology-enabled form of ADD.

But I'd argue that multi-tasking, when done right, is one of the best ways to save time throughout your day. Combining talking on the phone and “brain dead activities” is a great way to multitask. For most people, doing laundry or washing the dishes is an activity that takes no thought. Why not use that time to make a few phone calls and kill two birds with one stone? But remember, checking e-mail or watching TV are not brain dead activities. And nothing is more annoying than having a phone conversation with someone who is not fully present.

Another great way to multi task is to incorporate exercise into your activities. Need to get together with a friend to catch up? Meet them for a jog and get caught up while you knock out your daily workout. I'll often stretch (it's good for you!) while I'm reading or at my computer (I've got one those exercise balls that allows we to stretch while I'm checking e-mail…kinda geeky but it works for me!).

Something else I do is to do a series of exercises created by a gentleman named Pete Egoscue. These exercises are designed to improve flexibility and range of motion and prevent injury. And many of them can be done while reading, on the phone, etc. I'd highly recommend Pete's book Pain Free for anyone interested in these.

There are a ton of ways that you can incorporate exercise into your daily routines without taking any extra time out of your day. It's really a great way to free up your schedule and keep your body in tip-top shape.

Time Savings from Multi Tasking = Approximately 2.0 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #4: Get Organized

You really owe it to yourself to get organized because it will save you both time and stress. There are a number of different ways and strategies for getting organized. One of the best that I've found (and use personally) is David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology. GTD, as it is more commonly referred to, is a system for capturing and managing the things that you need to do and remember. It's remarkably effective in that it gets all of the little things out of your head which frees up your “psychic RAM” for more productive thoughts and results in increased creativity.

David Allen's system isn't the only one out there. A lot of people will use Franklin-Covey, Tony Robbins' life management system or any of a number of other planning systems. I'm not convinced that there's one best system out there but I think it's important for all of us to use some sort of a system so that “Remember to buy toothpaste” isn't consuming even an ounce of our mental energy.

There's a ton of info about GTD online for free and the investment you'll make in learning one of these systems will pay off in spades. Not only will you be more productive but you'll also feel less stressed which will result in more energy and once again will add hours to your days.

Time Savings from Getting Organized = Approximately 1.0 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #5: Improve Your Typing Speed

In this computer age, the keyboard is often our primary form of communication with many people. This is a wild ass guess but I'd say that the average person probably spends about 1-2 hours a day typing. This could be e-mails, IMs, memos, reports, etc . Certainly for some people this number is much higher and for others it is low. So let's just say an average of 1.5 hours per person for now.

Now let's assume that you currently type 40 WPM. If you improved your typing speed to 60 WPM you would save 33% of the time you are currently spending typing. Improve it to 80 WPM and you've now saved 50%. That's probably a half an hour or 45 minutes a day you've saved. Over the course of a year or a decade (not to mention a lifetime) this results in a *huge* savings.

It's amazing that we invest in all of these productivity applications in businesses and yet you have many people who are still hunting and pecking at their keyboard. That's just crazy to me. The faster you type the better you can communicate plain and simple. The keyboard becomes a natural extension of you vs. some impediment to exchanging information and sharing yourself with the world.

I'd highly recommend investing a little time (even just a few minutes a day) in improving your typing. A program that I use for this is TypingMaster and I love it. It's easy to use and can even be configured to track your real-world typing so that it can incorporate words you commonly mis-type into its drills. This is definitely a great way to save time on a daily basis.

Time Savings from Improving Your Typing Speed = Approximately 0.75 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #6: Improve Your Reading Speed

Just as with typing, improving your reading speed can make you more productive and save you tons of time. It also varies a lot but I'll assume that each of us again spends on average between one and two hours a day reading. Whether this is the morning paper, e-mails at works, research for your job or for school or the latest book we all have a need to be continually reading in this day and age.

The fact of the matter is that most of us don't read all that well. We read slow and we often have to read things multiple times to understand what's going on. And in the end that either reduces the amount of stuff we end up reading (if you read slow and have trouble comprehending reading just won't be enjoyable to you) or results in a lot more time invested in reading than necessary.

As with typing there are ways to improve your reading abilities. Here are a few that I've incorporated:

Active Reading - One of the reasons why many of us don't read that well is that we're entirely passive when reading. The brain engages much more when it is active and the best way to encourage this is to make notes while reading. If you're reading a book then mark the hell out of it. Underline passages, jot notes, etc. You'll find that your comprehension will go way up as will your reading speed (even after accounting for the time spent marking up your book). One of the best parts about making notes is that you can return to the material later and review it more quickly and effectively.

EyeQ - Off and on over the last few years I've been using a software application called EyeQ to improve my reading speed. I think it's the fastest and easiest way for a person increase their ability to rapidly process information. It works by getting you to move your eyes more quickly through material. This results in an increased ability to filter out words that are meaningless (a, an, the, etc.) as well as a reduced reliance on subvocalization.

Photoreading - I took a class in Photoreading a few years ago and while I'm still not convinced that it's 100% legit any system that claims to increase reading speed to 25,000 words per minute or more is definitely worth checking out. For people who have a ton of reading to do (e.g., graduate students, attorneys, etc.) something like Photoreading could possibly revolutionize their lives and free up tons of time.

Time Savings from Improving Your Reading Speed = Approximately 0.75 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #7: Learn Out Loud

Probably the #1 reason why I started LearnOutLoud.com is that I believe so strongly in the power of audio learning to literally add hours to peoples' lives and provide increased enjoyment of, and fulfillment during, times which have historically been frustrating and unproductive (e.g., the morning commute).

Audio learning is the perfect multi-tasking activity. Most people who know me know that I'm listening to audio books, podcasts, etc. several hours every day. I'll do this whenever I'm driving, while exercising, doing stuff around the apartment, etc. I've been able to crank through an unbelievable number of books in the last year (including unabridged versions of My Life by Bill Clinton and The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman) that I never would have found the time to sit down and read. Likewise, I've been able to virtually “attend” conferences like South by Southwest and the World Economic Forum thanks to the miracle of podcasting.

Thanks to the iPod and other portable MP3 players it's never been easier to learn out loud. One of my favorite things to do is to go for a run with a few podcasts or an audio book queued up. In fact, I recently completed the LA Marathon while simultaneously listening to the first half of John Battelle's book The Search (read more on that here). It was kind of fun to know that I was getting both a workout for my body and for my mind.

We've essentially set up LearnOutLoud as the epicenter for what I truly feel will be an audio learning revolution in upcoming years and decades. People are increasingly pressed for time and the opportunity to listen to the information you need to consume rather than having to read it opens up a lot of doors. It's a great way to stay on top of all the information and trends that affect your world and that's why I'm so excited about it.

Time Savings from Learning Out Loud = Approximately 1.5 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #8: Use Software To Your Advantage

The right software can bring huge time savings to your life. Certainly not all software will save you time. In fact, some applications can actually be huge time sucks. Anyone ever hear of Minesweeper? :) But there are some programs out there that will add minutes to your days and hours to your weeks and months. Here are some that I've stumbled upon:

ActiveWords - ActiveWords is a macro application that allows you to assign hot keys to repetitive tasks. We use this a lot in our business to save time and it could certainly save you time in your personal life as well.

Here's a simple example of how I use it. Let's say that someone is coming by the office for lunch. I want to give them fairly detailed directions via e-mail. One option would be to type up directions each time. That's really a waste as I'm writing the same thing everytime. Another option would be to type up the directions and put them in a text file and then cut and paste them into my e-mail each time I needed them. That does save time but I still have to find the text file on my system each time and do the cut and paste. What ActiveWords allows me to do is to assign a hot key or phrase to my directions. Now all I have to do is type “officedirections” and hit F8 and the directions will automatically be inserted into my e-mail. Cool huh?

There are a ton of ways to use this nifty little application and I feel that I'm just scratching the surface of its usefulness.

Cloudmark Spamblocker (or other anti-spam software) - If you're manually processing and deleting spam you're just wasting your time. The investment in a good spam blocker is well worth it. I've been using Cloudmark's product for several years and I really like it. Almost all my spam gets blocked and rarely does a legitimate message end up in my spam folder.

Another solution is to use GMail (or another web-based app) for your e-mail. These systems end up doing a pretty good job of filtering spam as well. And now a lot of these services have advanced functionality so you can use them and have the e-mails still appear to be coming from your domain (e.g., jon@learnoutloud.com rather than learnoutloud@gmail.com).

Bloglines (or other RSS aggregation software) - I follow 50+ blogs on a number of subjects including technology, new media, audio books, podcasting, U2 and of course Dilbert. There's no way I'd be able to stay on top of all of this stuff without the help
of a piece of software that puts all these blogs in one place and shows me what new updates have been made to each of them. I use Bloglines and I love it. Not only can I read blogs when I'm at the computer but there's even a mobile version of Bloglines so I can read blogs from my Blackberry.

Blogs are increasingly becoming the best way to consume information online and so if you haven't set up an aggregator yet I'd definitely recommend it. There are dozens of aggregators out there and while Bloglines does the trick for me you may want to look at the other apps to find one that works well for you.

Time Savings from Using Software To Your Advantage = Approximately 0.5 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #9: Cut Your TV Time in Half

Depending on what study you look at you'll find that the average person watches something like four hours of TV a day. That boggles my mind. We're incredibly busy and yet we somehow find a way to spend four or more hours a day watching television?!!! Crazy…

Now I'm not one to say that all television is bad or that mindless entertainment is never a good thing. There are definitely some TV shows and there's of course a time and a place for turning the brain off for a bit. I have no beef with that but what disturbs me is when people give huge chunks of their life to an activity that doesn't really provide any meaningful benefit in most cases.

A year and a half ago I turned off my cable service and I haven't missed it at all. I've got a Netflix subscription so I can have a few movies handy for times when I want to watch them. And if there's a big game on (like last night's incredible UCLA win…Go Bruins!) then I can typically find a place to watch it with some friends. What I have noticed is that the activity of sitting down “just to see what's on” has become entirely foreign to me. And I think that's a very good thing.

So I'm not saying you have to go to the extreme and shut your TV off. Just be conscious of what you're watching and why. And see if you can't reduce the amount of time you spend watching TV by 50%. If you currently watch four hours a day you almost assuredly can get by watching two hours a day. I mean there are some good shows on but not that many good shows…

Time Savings from Cutting Your TV Time in Half = Approximately 2.0 Hours

36 Hour Day Strategy #10: Get Help from Others

The final way to have a 36 Hour Day is to look for opportunities to have other people help you out with stuff. A lot of this definitely depends on factors like what your job is and how much money you have. If you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company you can probably find people to do a lot of stuff for you and will have no probably paying them to do so. But what about the rest of us?

First of all, don't discount people's interest in helping you out for free. Let's say you are moving in a few weeks. Why not ask several friends to help you out? It certainly makes the load a lot easier and saves you time.

Another possibility is trading things you are good at for things you need help with. For instance, let's say you need help with housecleaning. Perhaps you can find someone whose English skills aren't that good and offer to tutor them in English in exchange for help with cleaning. You'll save time and they'll benefit from your help resulting in a win-win for both of you.

There are tons of opportunities like this if you just keep your eyes open for them. Of course asking someone to help you out means being willing to help if you're asked to. But with all this time you're saving this shouldn't be a problem right? :)

P.S. There's another great way to save time when you're researching something or looking for information. There are a number of services online that will help you for free or a nominal charge. For instance, when I have a tech problem I'll often post it to Experts Exchange and I'll usually get back an answer within hours or even minutes. For non-techie questions I'll use a service like Google Answers. There's a small fee associated with getting questions answered but you can set the amount and it's almost always worth it in terms of the amount of time you save by getting someone to help you out with the research.

In addition to services like this there are thousands of message boards on the Internet staffed with volunteers who can help you answer many questions. Back in the day I started one of these message boards at CertTutor.net and it has helped thousands of people get their technology certification questions answered. It's just one of many like it out there in just about every subject you can imagine.

Time Savings from Getting Help from Others = Approximately 0.5 Hours

So as we add these up we find that there's the potential here to say 12 hours of time each day. Wow. Certainly your mileage with vary with the strategies but hopefully you can implement some of them in your daily life. Time is the most precious commodity on the planet and by saving time in some areas you'll have more time for doing the things that are truly the most important to you and for pursuing your goals and following your bliss. And if we all do that…well, I think that will change the world.